Debt burden

A 56 yr old seems unhappy now-a-days. He is working very hard to earn some money which will pay off his debt, but he can't manage enough. This keeps him worried. You might think that he is poor. It may even be partially correct. But his Net worth (current market value of assets - liabilities) is more than sufficient to be called upper middle class. Why the problems you might think. Well he his asset rich, but cash poor. Whats that you might ask. All the net worth comes from value of investments he holds, virtually all of which are in real estate. And by its nature real estate is not liquid. Especially in the current soft market. For some reason or the other he cannot sell any of his real estate. How unfortunate, you might think.
But if you look closer many families do the same mistake. Too much money in one type of asset. And Indians have a penchant to do it in real estate.

There are 2 types of lessons to be learnt.
1. Management of finances
2. Diversification

Management of finances: an asset will pay in 2 ways, current income and capital gain. It is important to have a good combination of both types of income. Current income-only type of assets like bonds and FDs will never keep their value against inflation, unless you reinvest substantial portion of the returns back into them. Taxes in India are higher on current income than capital gains. So your FD interest gets taxed at a higher rate before you can reinvest some of it back. Theres hardly any left to keep. For middle aged couple its best to keep maximum of one years expenses in FDs. All other saving should be diverted towards capital gains generating assets like real estate and stocks since they are more tax efficient. Even if they give slightly lower return, difference in tax rates and compounding will generate larger size returns at the end. Infact because tax is levied when the asset is finally sold and not every year, the asset compounds at a higher rate.

Talking about diversification, its important to diversify simply because when you need money you wont have to sell something at a loss. And some assets are better collaterals for loans than others. Basically it improves the 'liquidability' of your wealth. Plus there will not be a wide variation in your wealth all the time.